Sales Of Cars Priced Under Rs 10 Lakh Declining, Maruti Chairman R C Bhargava Calls It A ‘Concern’

The executive said that the cars in this price segment of under Rs 10 lakh once accounted for 80 per cent of the domestic market due to their affordability

Maruti Suzuki India Chairman, R C Bhargava, on Tuesday said that the decrease in sales of cars priced below Rs 10 lakh is a cause for concern for the industry. The executive said that the cars in this price segment once accounted for 80 per cent of the domestic market due to their affordability.

Due to the fall in this segment, the overall growth in the car market is ‘not happening’, he stated, reported PTI. Bhargava added that the public needs more disposable income for growth to bounce back in the lower price segment of the market.

At the same time, he said that the automaker expects a 14 per cent overall growth in retail sales in the current festive season. “Certainly, the fact is that the market under Rs 10 lakh is not growing. In fact, it is declining. That is a cause of some worry because unless that lower end of the market grows, there is going to be no feeders into the upper market,” the chairman noted.

Regarding growth issues in the other segments of the market, Bhargava stated, “That (segment of) market is not growing at the moment. That is a cause of worry. It is not the overall slowdown, but it's the segmentation which has happened. The fact that growth is taking place only in the more expensive cars, I think that doesn't make me very happy.”

Data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) revealed that the passenger vehicle wholesales in the country touched 33,77,436 units in 2018-19, meanwhile the same figure hit a record high of 42,18,746 units in 2023-24.

Traditionally, Maruti Suzuki India has seen major growth come in from the affordable car segment of under Rs 10 lakh. However, things are now changing. “Growth is not coming from the under Rs 10 lakh for Maruti (too). We have volumes there, but the growth is not happening because of that. If we didn't grow in the above Rs 10 lakh market, we would have been well below 40 per cent in our (overall industry) market share,” the chairman pointed out.

Explaining the reason behind the decline in the segment, the executive said that affordability is the main factor. He said people need to have more disposable income.

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